The psychoanalysis of self psychology serves an implicit social function in seamlessly hiding the contradictions in the economic, political and cultural arrangements of our society by not analyzing them, and therefore allowing them to remain as unconscious determinants of suffering.

Kropotkin pointed out that Darwin’s own comments regarding the survival value of the social instincts are widely ignored. In The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin described how animal species in which cooperation among individuals replaced competitive struggle were able to secure the best conditions for survival. He implied that, in such cases, the... See more

We must also include in our clinical theories the psychological misery occasioned by actual and often ongoing experiences of social oppression. In part, such socialized misery may be internalized and perpetuated by an individual’s use of mechanisms such as identification with the aggressor, dissociation, denial, and projective identification, which... See more

To survive, any society requires moral legitimization. The philosophy of liberal individualism serves to legitimize capitalism because it espouses ideals that suggest that all human rights and needs are respected under its terms. If it were generally recognized that capitalism is a system of dominance and exploitation that requires the enrichment... See more

Psychological-mindedness (the propensity to take responsibility for one’s problems and to look within oneself for the solutions) is considered by many to be an important criterion for analyzability. Historically, these criteria have operated to exclude many who might otherwise have seemed to be potential beneficiaries of psychoanalytic treatment.... See more

A traditional ego-psychology analysis typically focuses on analyzing the patient’s inner life as the main source of problems. In contrast, a relational analyst emphasizes not only the patient’s inner life, but also the mutual relational dynamics of the therapeutic interaction in the session.

Relational psychoanalytic models, sometimes referred to as intersubjective, do not view individuals as discrete centers of experience and action; instead, they assert that all self-experience is ontologically social. They challenge the “myth of the isolated mind” (Stolorow and Atwood, 1992, p. 7) and suggest that psychological experience is derived... See more

Geertz (1973) argues that the Enlightenment view of human nature placed such an overbearing emphasis on universal characteristics that it relegated the differential effects of culture to secondary status.

Arguably, liberal individualism, social Darwinism, and free-market theory are transforms of one another, deriving their basic assumptions from the same atomistic and hierarchical worldview, all containing elitist principles (meritocracy, survival of the fittest, and plutocracy) and all with the consequent stratifications of race, gender, ethnicity,... See more